Suicide Boys
by Fearful Little Thing
Summary: AU: Blaine thought that the only thing he'd have to deal with at his new school would be deciding whether or not to come out. He never counted on Kurt Hummel, or all of the things that happened next.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Suicide Boys, A Murderverse Story  
><strong>Rating<strong>: PG-13 but will go up.  
><strong>Character(s)Pairing(s)**: Kurt/Puck, Blaine, and appearances from New Directions.  
><strong>Genre<strong>: Drama  
><strong>Warning<strong>: AU, adult themes, potential creepiness, mentions of death and bullying.  
><strong>Spoilers<strong>: AU from season 1.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment.  
><strong>Author Notes<strong>: This is an AU in which _Dalton doesn't exist_. Event timelines may have been altered. This story is also part of the "murderverse", set after Stick Like A Pig but before Two Freaks. I also feel like I should warn that Blaine, who is pre-canon, is not the exact same boy we're used to watching.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Blaine thought that the only thing he'd have to deal with at his new school would be deciding whether or not to come out. He never counted on Kurt Hummel, or all of the things that happened next.

* * *

><p>.<p>

The transfer was finalised just after the last exams of the year, which gave him the entire summer to get used to the idea of a new school. Blaine Anderson was quietly terrified. The cast on his right arm came off two weeks into the holidays, the bruises long since faded and the splits in his lip and eyebrow healed into thin pink scars. He still limped a little, but apparently that's what a torn ligament will do to you. It would heal, it was just taking its sweet time to do so.

In a hidden, rational part of his mind he knew he shouldn't be scared. He hadn't quite made the requirements for a scholarship at Dalton Academy, but McKinley high in Lima was closer to home and had maintained a fairly good reputation even after the morbid tragedy of last year.

The student body had really pulled together, he'd heard the principal's speech to his mother, sitting awkwardly in the man's office an hour after school had ended for the day. There hadn't been a single instance of bullying in months. The glee club had even held a concert to raise funds for the memorial garden now featured outside the main entrance.

"Hear that, honey," his mother had smiled at him, looking heartbreakingly hopeful, "there's a glee club. You could start singing again."

"I could," Blaine had agreed, largely just to keep from making her feel bad. "Maybe."

It would be a long bus ride each morning to a school full of hundreds of new faces. Hundreds of people who might judge him if he was too quick to out himself, or if they knew what had happened to make him transfer. He wouldn't be telling anyone about the couple of weeks taken off school, or about how the kids who'd beaten him up had been arrested only to be released later when the other victim – a boy he'd thought was his friend – had refused to press charges or corroborate Blaine's story.

As far as the law was concerned he'd done all of it to himself.

Which really didn't help his confidence when faced with the prospect of a new school full of potential new threats. He wasn't afraid to admit that he spent most of the summer fretting, cooped up in his bedroom and refusing to go out with his old friends in case they ran into one of the boys who'd beaten him. In fact, by the time the school year actually started he'd practically convinced himself that leaving the house was just a disaster waiting to happen.

"I don't feel well," he tried the old excuse first thing in the morning when his mother came to wake him up. "I think I'm sick."

His mother put the back of her hand against his forehead and gave him a doubtful look. "Come on," she said, ignoring his claim to illness, "I've made pancakes for breakfast."

"Do I have to go?" Blaine asked, reluctantly sitting up in bed. "You could have agreed to home-school me."

"Honey, everything will be fine." His mother smiled at him. "This will be good for you. You'll get out of the house, make some new friends..."

"What if I don't want to get out of the house and make new friends?"

"Then you're out of luck, honey. You're going to school today." She sighed. "Just try, sweetie? Just take it all one day at a time and soon enough you'll see that it's not that bad. McKinley sounds like a decent school, won't you at least give it a chance?"

He really wanted to say no, but she was giving him that same hopeful smile again. The one that reminded him of how much his parents had already gone through on his account and made him feel like a jerk for even thinking about disappointing them again. Blaine sighed. So much for staying home.

Half an hour later he was sitting in the car, his pancake breakfast feeling like a lead weight in his stomach. He was dressed as casually as he knew how, determined not to draw too much attention to himself. Jeans, t-shirt, hoodie, and sneakers that were just the right amount of scuffed to not look brand new. He stared blankly out the window on the drive in, trying not to think about all of the awful things that were bound to happen. But the more determined he was not to think the worst the more nasty scenarios kept just popping into his head.

By the time they actually arrived at McKinley he was just about ready to hurl. He honestly had no idea how he managed to kiss his mother goodbye and make it all the way to administration. It was like one minute he was sitting in the car and the next he was standing at the reception desk with a crisp new schedule in his hand. Blaine stammered a thank you to the receptionist and left to find his locker, belatedly wishing he'd thought to ask for some kind of a map too.

It took him far too long to find his locker, long enough that the bell rang while he was still trying to open it.

Students scattered, disappearing from the hall in a stampede that left him alone in just moments. Late on his first day. On the first day of school.

"Great," Blaine muttered to himself, finally managing to get the damn thing open. "What a great way to start the new year. Being late."

"It's actually a long held tradition," a voice suddenly piped up from beside him. Startled, Blaine slammed his locker shut to reveal the boy standing at an open locker several feet down the hall. "For certain people to be late on the first day of any new semester. Of course, that was back when early morning dumpster tosses were still in fashion."

Blaine wasn't sure what to say to that, so he just stood there watching the other boy select a thin book covered in pink protective cover. The boy shut his locker and turned to face Blaine, a smile on his very pink, very plush lips.

"Kurt Hummel," he introduced himself as if Blaine should already know who he was. "And you must be new."

"Blaine Anderson. I just transferred in," he said. And then added, a little sheepishly; "I have no idea where I'm supposed to be right now."

Kurt walked over to him in a few quick steps, hand out and fingers flicking, gesturing to his schedule. "Let me see your timetable?" He scanned it quickly when Blaine handed it over, then moved to stand beside him and point to his first class listed. "You have English with Mr. Hooper which, coincidentally, is right up the hall over there. I'll walk you, it's on my way."

"Thanks," Blaine said, taking the schedule back. "I appreciate it."

"Don't mention it." Kurt smiled at him. "This is purely self-centred. I now have an excuse for my own tardiness."

"Still, it was nice of you. I don't know many kids who'd help the new kid like this."

"Then you don't know the right people." Kurt stopped him in front of a classroom door. "This is you," he said, and smiled again. "Welcome to McKinley, Blaine Anderson."

Blaine couldn't help but smile back, all of his horrific worst-case-scenarios temporarily pushed from his mind. "Thanks for the welcome, Kurt Hummel."

He watched Kurt walk down the hall for a moment, taking note of the way the other boy moved. Like he was on a catwalk, like he owned the place. A boy like that – a boy who was pinging Blaine's gaydar as an 11 out of 10 – walking with that kind of confidence was a good sign. A sign that just maybe McKinley wouldn't be such a bad place after all.

Blaine slipped into Mr. Hooper's English class with an apology for his lateness and found himself assigned a seat up the front for his trouble. He didn't mind, English had always been one of his better subjects. He found himself paying less attention to the class than to wondering about Kurt. He wondered if the confidence was just a front or if he really did have a right to walk down the halls of McKinley High like he owned the place.

The rest of his day was fairly uneventful, full of introductions and being forced to stand up in front of half of his classes and say 'a few words' about himself. Lunch was awkward, more so than he would have liked. He wound up sitting in the spare seat at a table full of people who acted as if he wasn't even there, which was less than gratifying. His afternoon classes were much the same, until he wound up in French and finally saw a familiar face.

Kurt waved to him from the back of the classroom and Blaine immediately zeroed in on the empty seat next to him.

"So I see you've made it to the end of the day without hurting yourself," Kurt joked, tapping a sparkly blue pen against his desk.

"Barely," Blaine confessed. "This is the first time I've had to adjust to a new school since junior high."

"I hear it gets easier. I wouldn't know, I've been at school with the same people since elementary. You can't imagine how depressing that once was."

"It's not now?"

"Well now I'm a Cheerio and in the glee club," Kurt replied, and it took Blaine a moment to recall that the cheerleaders here were called 'Cheerios'. "Life is generally much less depressing than it was this time last year."

"You're in the glee club?" Blaine asked. He remembered his mother's hopeful smile and how good it used to feel when he was singing up on a stage with an audience watching him. Back before he came out and everything went to hell. "I used to sing –" he started, but was cut off by the appearance of their teacher.

"Alright boys and girls, who's ready to conjugate?"

Blaine snapped his mouth shut and paid attention to the lesson, taking notes quietly until Kurt's pen poked him in the side. "You used to sing...?" Kurt prompted softly.

"At my old school," Blaine replied in a murmur, deciding not to get into the details. Talking about the solos he used to get and the talent shows he used to win seemed too much like bragging. He didn't want Kurt to think he was conceited. And part of him was also a little afraid to bring it up. He wasn't sure he was brave enough.

"Glee club has a practice after school today," Kurt told him. "One of our members moved over the summer so we're a person short this year. You should come along and see if you like it. I know everyone would be glad to have you."

"You only want me for my voice," Blaine joked. Then fell silent, shocked at how flirty that had sounded. He hadn't intended to say that. It had just sort of come out and now he didn't know how to take it back. He didn't want to come out here, not yet, not on his first day! And definitely not until he knew for sure how this school treated people like him.

Kurt didn't seem to notice his uncomfortable silence. "That's me," he joked back, "I always have an ulterior motive."

.

.

Blaine followed Kurt to glee practice when class ended, bemused by the way the rest of the students seemed to part around him. Kurt cut through the crowd like a knife, head held high, clusters of students moving out of the way and people stepping to the side to let him pass. It was a shock for him to see the way the other students looked at Kurt. He recognised the same sort of awed envy-cum-admiration that cool or popular kids always seemed to have directed at them. To see people looking at someone like Kurt in that way was... completely foreign.

Blaine didn't know how to bring it up, or even if he should, so he just followed in Kurt's wake like some kind of puppy until finally they came to the choir room and the door shut on the rest of the world.

There were a few people already in the room, a couple of girls sitting together, a handful of boys in letterman jackets, and a pianist that sat at the baby grand and seemed to be ignoring everything and everyone in the room. One of the jackets broke away from the small cluster, came up to Kurt, and casually slung an arm around the other boy's shoulders.

"Who's the newbie?"

"This is Blaine," Kurt introduced him, raising a hand to touch the jacket's hand. "And this is Noah."

"Puck," Noah corrected. "Nobody calls me Noah without losing teeth."

Blaine took one look at Puck's build and the obvious bad-boy vibe he was cultivating and decided not to draw attention to the obvious double standard. He was intimidated, even a little bit afraid. "Um, hey. Nice to meet you," he offered, faking bravado and trying not to recall any similarities between Puck and the bullies from his last school.

"Blaine is thinking about joining glee," Kurt said, voice pitched so that he was informing the room at large.

"That's excellent," a vibrant, female voice sounded behind him, and Blaine turned just in time to see a small brunette enter the room. "As you all know we here in New Directions have always struggled to find a consistent balance between our male and female voices, so on behalf of the whole choir let me be the first to welcome you to our team."

"Rachel Berry," Kurt stated, giving Blaine a dry look, "known for incurable verbal diarrhoea."

"And for my amazing talent," Rachel added, holding out a hand for Blaine to shake. Her grip was strong. He couldn't help but think it must be to match her personality.

"We're going to sit down now, Rachel," Kurt told her, sweeping away and steering Puck towards the chairs that lined the room. "Blaine, don't be intimidated and come along."

Blaine smiled at Rachel in apology and followed Kurt, secretly grateful to be given an out and not immediately expected to introduce himself. He took the spare seat on Kurt's left, noticing as he sat that the other two boys were now casually holding hands. Boyfriend, Blaine thought, slightly disappointed. Kurt was obviously off market.

He didn't let the disappointment linger for too long, instead thinking about the positive implications of what he'd seen so far. Kurt was flamboyant in the most stereotypical of ways and from what Blaine had seen he seemed to be right at the top of the food chain. Puck, on the other hand, was clearly not a stereotype and had that same kind of tough-guy look that Blaine would normally associate with bullies. The mix of students in the glee club seemed promising too. A quick look around and he could see students from what looked like every conceivable social group in the school. None of them batting an eyelash at the displays of public affection.

A few more students trickled in, followed by a smiling man in a sweater vest, and Blaine started to feel a bit odd.

"Welcome back gleeks!" the man in the sweater vest announced, clapping his hands together. "It's good to see everyone back again after the summer holidays, and it's especially nice to see we seem to have a few new faces this year."

Kurt leaned over to comment into Blaine's ear; "Mr. Schuester, the most optimistic man you'll ever meet."

"Now over the holidays I've had a lot of time to think," Mr. Schuester continued, "and what have I been thinking about? New York. This year nationals are going to be held in, that's right, New York. And this year we're going to make it."

"I see what you mean," Blaine murmured back, though he couldn't help but feel like maybe things really would be different in this school. He could see how Mr. Schuester's optimism was infectious, trickling through the club and creating an atmosphere full of promise and possibility. The whole club just seemed so comfortable with each other, he suddenly felt like introducing himself and getting involved wouldn't be such a big task after all.

Not bad for a first day, he couldn't help but think to himself. And maybe, he glanced at Kurt, he may have even made a friend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning**: AU, adult themes, potential creepiness, mentions of death and bullying.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment.  
><strong>Author Notes<strong>: I'm beginning to think this story is going to be much longer than I originallly thought...**  
><strong>

* * *

><p>.<p>

This time last year Kurt Hummel had been a nobody. A singing, dancing loser with as much social standing as a peanut. The difference between now and then was so vast that it was shocking. In fact sometimes it still amazed him that in a few short months he'd gone from being on the bottom rung of the social ladder to sitting on the top tier. Although, naturally, Coach Sylvester claimed full responsibility for the change he knew better.

All it took was a little careful scheming and a few convenient deaths.

Kurt Hummel, by the way, was very good at careful scheming.

Most of the time he maintained a perfect routine that began in the mornings while he sat in front of his vanity mirror and applied moisturiser and the barest hint of foundation to his face. He dressed while his face dried, brushed his teeth, and finally fixed his hair before he ventured upstairs to the kitchen. He never ate breakfast, except on Sundays. Sundays were family brunch days, brunch falling close enough to lunch that he was usually hungry enough to eat it.

This morning, like every other, Kurt breezed into the kitchen and pecked his father on the cheek. "Morning, daddy," he said, and went straight for the fridge to pick up a bottle of still mineral water. The kitchen clock, hung by the refrigerator, read 7;15. Burt always left at 7;30 on the dot and Kurt left whenever schoolwork and clubs allowed him to which usually meant they overlapped for at least a few minutes every morning.

"Anything interesting happening at school today?" Burt asked, looking up from the paper.

"Glee recruitment drive," Kurt replied simply, cracking open his mineral water to take a careful sip. "Not that we need it. We've already had two new sign-ons this week, but I suppose we can never have too many people interested in the arts. Who knows, I might even find someone capable of doing a proper duet."

Burt raised his eyebrows. "What about Puck?"

Kurt shrugged his shoulders expressively. "We don't always see eye to eye in our song choices. A little Broadway might make a nice change from music that hasn't seen the light of day in twenty years... Don't tell him I said that." Kurt glanced at the time again, noticed that it was close to 7;20, and capped his water again. He walked over to peck his dad's cheek again. "Time to go or I'll miss cheer practice."

Kurt picked up his car keys from where they hung above the counter and left through the back door. That was another thing that had changed since this time last year, he mused. This time last year Puck had been that bully who tossed him in the dumpster at least once a week. But then he'd joined glee and somehow had a change of heart, a change that was set in stone sometime during September of last year. Which, coincidentally, was only a short time before they'd started dating.

Kurt smirked to himself as he turned the key in the ignition. Dating. Screwing. Tied together by secrets and inescapable attraction. Now known as the school's 'It Couple', Kurt singing-dancing-cheerleading Hummel and Noah toughest-guy-in-school Puckerman.

Kurt couldn't help but smile to himself as he pulled into the school parking lot. He had a whole year full of wonderful ahead of him. And nothing could ruin that. He picked up his cheerleading uniform from the back seat and locked the car behind him, sauntered into the school building feeling on top of the world.

Not even seeing the memorial for the six abhorrent boys who had died last year could ruin his good mood. After all, he'd been the one who suggested the memorial. It had paid off, after all. The concert had been the one to make the glee club the social success it was today, while Kurt's altruism and concern for the boys who'd been killed made him all the more likeable.

Cheer practice had gotten easier as the months went by. All of the dancing he did, with both the Cheerios and New Directions, had toned his body. He was fit. He also looked darn good in uniform if he did say so himself.

Practice ended with just enough time to get ready for classes. Unlike the rest of the cheerios Kurt tended to change out of his uniform and back into his street clothes. It always made him a little bit late on the days after morning practice, but he got away with it by smiling at his teachers in a way that silently reminded them that he was their best student. He wasn't, of course, the _best_ student, but being intelligent and attentive went a long way at McKinley.

Like usual, Kurt always paid attention in his classes. He wanted good grades, an average that would look good on his college applications. He already knew what he wanted from life and had a rough idea of how to get there. Step one was always linked back to grades, so he made sure not to slack off at school.

Lunchtime was a well deserved break and his first meal of the day.

Kurt packed up when the bell rang and made his way through the crowded hallways to his locker. He always took a partial packed lunch just on the off chance that the food in the cafeteria happened to be something he didn't want to touch with a ten foot pole. He also brought his own cutlery, neatly folded up with a napkin. He spared a glance over to the locker he recognised as belonging to Blaine but when he didn't see the other boy he just shrugged his shoulders and went to lunch. He could always wave the boy over later if he saw him.

A few short minutes later Kurt was taking his seat at the head of the 'gleek' table, a small social mesh of cheerleaders, jocks, and kids who had previously been nothing more than musical pond scum. This time last year everyone at the table had been an outcast in some way. This year, Kurt noted with satisfaction, it looked like the table that everyone secretly wanted a seat at.

He was just starting to unpack his lunch and utensils when a flash of awkward caught his eye. Kurt looked up to see Blaine in the middle of an internal debate, standing several tables over and looking towards the glee table. Kurt raised his hand and waved him over. "Blaine! Over here."

"Seriously?" A voice in his ear murmured.

Kurt turned his head to look at his boyfriend, one eyebrow arched. "Yes, seriously. I'm allowed to be nice once in a while."

Puck rolled his eyes and patted Kurt's thigh. "Whatever you say, baby," he said, then promptly turned his attention back to whatever sport-related conversation was going on to Kurt's right.

It took Blaine a few seconds to squeeze through the lunch crowds to actually get to the table and the space Kurt had created on his left. "Thanks," Blaine smiled as he sat down, setting his lunch tray in the space in front of him.

"Don't mention it," Kurt replied, unwrapping his knife and fork from their napkin. "This is the glee table, so you're welcome to sit here. Sometimes you might need to elbow a few people to make some space..."

"You guys generally seem like a pretty friendly crowd."

"Generally," Kurt agreed with a small smirk.

"Well, yesterday I did get my teeth threatened." Blaine's glance slid over to Puck, then back to Kurt again.

"Boyfriend," Kurt explained, picking up on the question. "Ex juvenile delinquent. Not the sort of boy who likes shopping trips and non fat mocha lattes. I'm told we're an odd couple, but we have enough mutual interests to keep things interesting. Plus he has a nice ass," Kurt couldn't help but add, knowing full well that Puck would be listening in, "and an incredible body."

Blaine's cheeks flushed a little, a sign that told Kurt he was absolutely right in his initial assessment of the boy. "I wouldn't know," Blaine said, a little awkwardly.

"Play it that way if you like," Kurt replied with a shrug, opening up the Tupperware container with his crisp Greek salad inside, "but we both know differently. Anyway, it's not as if I'm going to tell anyone."

"...Thanks." Blaine looked down at his school lunch, which looked like some kind of pasta. "My old school," he said eventually, "wasn't exactly the most understanding. It's why I transferred here, so... I'd appreciate it if it didn't get out just yet. I want to settle in first, try to make some friends before I'm suddenly known as..." He trailed off, looking a little sheepish as he realised who he was talking to.

"Oh, I was 'the gay kid' for several years," Kurt replied, waving a lettuce leaf dismissively. "What you need," he told Blaine, feeling a shopping trip coming on, "is to get yourself established in this school. You need a reputation. And, incidentally, you happen to be at the perfect table for that."

"I am?" He didn't sound too enthused.

"Blaine, I think you'll find that things are very different here at McKinley. The glee club, for example, is full of the most popular kids in school. We're minor celebrities. All we have to do," Kurt assured the other boy, "is put you on a stage with us and you'll never have any problems fitting in ever again."

"He has an ulterior motive," Puck cut in, making Kurt jump. He hadn't even realised Puck was still listening in and glared over his shoulder at his boyfriend. Puck just smirked and informed Blaine; "He _always_ has an ulterior motive."

Annoyed, Kurt glared at Puck for a second longer before he turned back to Blaine with a smile. "My other male friends, Puck included, are all 'manly macho men'. My girl friends are wonderful, but I would like to have a boy around who doesn't spend all his time talking about sports and video games."

"You want to be my friend," Blaine summarised, obviously feeling a little surprised, or maybe overwhelmed.

"Tell me, can you handle frequent shopping trips at the mall and quaint little cafes?"

"I think so," Blaine answered.

"Good." Kurt smiled at him, deciding to ease off and let it all soak in before he put anything else on the agenda. Kurt had become very used to both being listened to and getting his way. He was spoiled, he knew it, and it suited him. Blaine, on the other hand, obviously didn't have the same kind of confidence. Blaine was him this time last year, less flamboyant and clearly less in touch with his feminine side, but similar enough that Kurt felt justified in deciding to take the boy under his wing.

.

* * *

><p>.<p>

The first step of Blaine's integration was apparently introducing him to a new wardrobe. He tried to make it clear from the outset that he didn't want to wind up looking like a fashion plate but he wasn't sure how much of that got through. Kurt still dragged him into several big name stores, but Blaine was relieved when everything the other boy picked for him was comparatively plain.

"It is all about image," Kurt informed him, seated outside the fitting room while Blaine tried on several different pieces. "But you want an image that suits you."

"And that image is black slacks and dark brown sweaters?" Blaine asked, poking his head out of the stall.

"I don't know. Do you think it is?"

Blaine thought about it a minute, then opened the door. "It's nice," he decided, looking at himself in the full length mirror, "but I dunno, it might be a bit formal for me."

Kurt nodded. He was dressed in a bright red trench, a matching red hat perched jauntily on his head. "Designer jeans and graphic tees?" he suggested and looked Blaine up and down thoughtfully. "That outfit for dates."

Blaine shook his head. "I've been at McKinley a week and even I know that besides you and Puck I'm the only gay guy in the school."

"And last year I was the only gay boy in Lima," Kurt replied dryly. "You never know what might happen."

By now, after only just a few days of knowing him, Blaine was already able to recognise Kurt's stubborn look. He sighed. "The closet is a pretty big place," he said, only slightly sarcastic.

"Yours will be filled with tasteful clothes," Kurt replied, pushing him back into the fitting room.

"I have a limited amount of funding, you know." Blaine said as he took off the designer clothes and exchanged them for his own. "And this stuff can get pretty expensive. I'll admit I'm not exactly short on allowance, but two hundred dollars for a pair of pants? That's going to run up a pretty big bill."

"Yes, but this is an ongoing project," Kurt's voice cut through the flimsy fitting room door clear enough to make it sound like he was in the tiny stall with him. "As long as you have a few nice pieces to start with it doesn't matter if you can't retool your entire wardrobe in one day."

Dressed once again in his plain old jeans and long sleeved shirt Blaine emerged from the fitting room with the dress slacks and sweater draped over one arm. Kurt immediately took hold of his other arm and steered him towards the checkout. As Blaine forked over what he felt was a ridiculous amount to spend on a single outfit he glanced to the side at the other boy. He couldn't help but admire how at home with himself Kurt seemed. Like there was nothing in the world that could possibly unsettle him.

Blaine took the bag from the smarmy cashier and followed Kurt out of the store. "Can we take a break?" he asked. "I never actually realised how exhausting shopping could be."

"That's because you've never done it properly," Kurt smirked at him. "But I suppose we can take a break. Cheap lattes from the food court?"

Blaine grinned. "I like the sound of that."

'Cappy hour' at the mall food court was a godsend. Two for one drinks for one hour only meant that between them two large coffees only cost the spare change they could scrounge from their pockets. Blaine was glad not to have to break another note, or to see any more money from his small stash change shape into clothing. Yet. He knew full well the day wasn't over and he was in for an overhaul whether he wanted one or not. Watching Kurt sip his giant mocha latte he kind of felt like he wanted the change. Blaine wanted to be that confident, that popular. He could definitely stand to be a little more like Kurt, he thought to himself.

His thoughts were interrupted by the beep of a phone. Kurt pulled his out of a pocket of his trench. "Just a second," he said to Blaine, then faced away from him, the message on the screen hidden by his body. Blaine could hear him type out a quick response before he turned back, all smiles. "Sorry about that."

"It's ok," Blaine replied, watching Kurt put his phone away and fuss with his trench a moment. "I don't expect you to tune out the world for the sake of one friend."

He really hoped he hadn't overstepped that. He wasn't entirely certain that they were at the friend stage.

"Shopping is important," Kurt announced in return. "Especially between friends."

Several hours later when Blaine finally arrived home, weighted down with several shopping bags, his feet practically killing him, the warm fuzzy glow of friendship was still there to make him smile. Just a little.

.

* * *

><p>.<p>

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing texting me things like that in public!" Kurt hissed into his phone, quiet even though his basement room was practically soundproof.

"Chill, Kurt," Puck's voice oozed into his ear from the speaker, "I just found it online and thought you might like it. How was I supposed to know you were in public?"

"Because I _told_ you that's where I'd be. You _knew_ I'd be out today. And you still decided it would be a brilliant idea!"

"It was a brilliant idea. You liked it."

Kurt could practically hear the smirk in Puck's voice and had to bite his lip a moment to stop from yelling at him. Instead he took a calming breath. "I don't want you to send me anything like that while I'm out again. You only send those when you know I'm at home. During the times we agreed."

There was a short silence, just a couple of seconds of nothing but soft breathing until Puck spoke again. "But you liked it, right?"

Then it was Kurt's turn to pause a minute. He thought about the photo Puck had sent him, something that looked suspiciously like the kind of photograph that would be taken at a crime scene. It might have been staged, but it was a darn good staging. The attention to detail had been immaculate and the blood was exactly the right colour. It was burned into his memory like all of the other photos, all of the other films. He had to wonder where on earth Puck had found it.

"Yes," Kurt said finally, breathily. "I liked it."

"I've got more," Puck teased.

Kurt bit his lip again, this time for a very different reason. "God, I hate you."

"You love it. I'll show you tomorrow when you come over... Bye, Bonnie."

Puck hung up before he could reply. Kurt sat down on the edge of his bed, trying to recall if he'd locked his bedroom door or not. A short internal debate later and he was 90% sure he had, which was sure enough for him to look up the text Puck had sent him earlier. He imagined a whole set of photos like these and could feel himself getting hard. Kurt groaned softly, tomorrow afternoon was going to take a ridiculously long time to arrive.


	3. Chapter 3

**Warning**: AU, adult themes, potential creepiness, mentions of death and bullying.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment.  
><strong>Author Notes<strong>: Someone asked if this story would end in Klaine. So, just as a warning for any folks hanging out for a happy ending... this is the murderverse. Even if there is Klaine, it will not end happily.**  
><strong>

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><p>.<p>

School on Monday morning was nerve wracking. He'd already been at McKinley for a week and yet somehow it felt like his first day all over again. The only differences between now and then were his clothes – designer brand jeans, grey graphic print tee, and open blue shirt – and the fact that he was friends with Kurt Hummel. That one was a difference that seemed to give him some instant credibility.

He noticed it as he was getting out of his mother's car, her "have a good day, honey" still ringing in his ears. Heads turned his way, he heard Kurt's name on the breeze, a group of girls nearby trying to remember if they'd heard his. He took a chance and smiled at them on his way past, feeling like a fraud when he got flirtatious looks in return.

Evidently being friends with the biggest queen in the school didn't automatically make him gay.

It was both a relief and a burden. He couldn't imagine ever leading on a girl just for the sake of his image, but he also wasn't ready to risk his budding reputation (or his safety) by coming out.

Blaine didn't know how he managed to make it to his locker without messing up the confident walk he was trying to cultivate. Somehow he made it, a little surprised to see the small group of females waiting for him.

"Hey guys," he greeted them, still a little uncertain about how friendly he should be with people he'd only known for a week. True, they were in glee together, but that didn't automatically make them all best friends.

Or so he thought. He might have been mistaken. The thought did enter his mind when Mercedes announced; "Kurt tells us you're looking to get a new image this year."

"He says your old one was so last season," Brittany added, repeating the words as if she had memorised them but wasn't one hundred percent sure what they meant, "and you need a helping hand or you'll be stuck in the closet forever."

"So we're here as a reputation boost," Quinn finished. "As the most popular girls in school whoever we hang out with automatically increases in popularity themselves. Add to that the fact that you'll be seen walking to class with three of the hottest girls at McKinley and your X factor amongst the other students will definitely see an increase."

"Everyone will think you're really hot and mysterious," Brittany said, blonde hair bouncing as she nodded.

Blaine wasn't sure what to say to that. He blinked, putting his things away in his locker as an excuse for the pause. "Thanks," he said eventually. "But, don't take this the wrong way, what's in it for you?"

Mercedes shrugged. "Gossip." The other two girls nodded. "We can say we have the scoop on McKinley's newest stud. Plus Kurt promised to buy us all non fat muffins from Starbucks if we helped you out."

Blaine wasn't sure if he should be offended or impressed. He decided to go for the latter. "So you're walking me to class?"

"You're walking me to class," Quinn corrected, "and then dropping Mercedes off down the hall, and Brittany has English with you so you'll be walking with her."

"Ok," Blaine agreed, looking between the three girls, "I can do that."

The entire operation consisted of walking, making small talk, and being seen. They dropped Quinn off at her classroom five minutes early, which meant that Mercedes was also a few minutes early, giving Blaine and Brittany just a few minutes to walk to their own class. During that time Blaine could see people looking in their direction and talking about them. This, he realised, was obviously step two in Kurt's plan to make him popular and accepted.

"Kurt is a genius," Brittany commented when he mentioned it to her. "He taught me how to tie my shoelaces."

"He seems like a nice guy," Blaine said casually, taking a seat at one of the empty desks. He wasn't too surprised this time when Brittany sat next to him.

"He's really nice," Brittany agreed, "and he has really soft hands too. It's too bad that he's also really gay otherwise I'd want to date him."

Sensing an unsuspecting well of information in the blonde girl, Blaine leaned over and asked; "Is he really the most popular guy in school? Because that just seems kind of unusual to me."

Brittany nodded. "Aside from Finn he's the most popular boy in school."

"Why?"

"Well everybody used to think he was a loser, but then all of those kids died last year and he was the one who suggested doing a concert to raise funds for a memorial," Brittany explained, and it sounded as if she was reciting a news article she'd read. "He also sang for the Cheerios at Nationals and helped us win and people say he helped rehabilitate Puck so he doesn't set things on fire or throw kids in dumpsters anymore."

Blaine needed a moment to take all of that in. He was about to ask Brittany why she thought Kurt was being so nice to him when Mr. Hooper walked in and began the lesson. Resigned to not getting any more answers for the moment Blaine sat back in his desk properly and started taking notes. Being concerned with popularity was no reason to fall behind in class work, even if they were still just going over what had been taught last year. He had planned to try and talk to Brittany again after class but was thwarted when it turned out that she needed to go in a completely different direction.

Instead Blaine found himself in his next class alone. The class after that he somehow wound up sitting beside Mike from the glee club, who said a friendly hello and then didn't say much more unless commenting on the work they were supposed to be doing. Blaine didn't mind. At least it was company.

He got through the morning without mishap, and without overhearing too much gossip about himself, before suddenly it was lunchtime and Kurt seemed to appear out of nowhere and take hold of his elbow. "My plan is," Kurt announced, leading him towards the cafeteria, "of course, working perfectly. You are now the second-most talked about person or event in the school."

"Second most?" Blaine asked, getting the same sense of things moving very quickly that he'd had that weekend at the mall.

"After Amanda Peterson's supposedly blowing a nameless football player under the bleachers," Kurt said dismissively, clearly not seeing that 'information' as in any way relevant."Which means that the arrival of mysterious stranger Blaine Anderson at McKinley high is second only to a supposedly sordid sexual scandal. But then again who isn't?"

"It's pretty hard to beat sexual scandal," Blaine said, going with the first thing that popped into his head. "It was the same at my old school."

Kurt clucked his tongue. "Never mention your old school," he advised. "Blaine, we are crafting a new identity for you as the mysterious and handsome newcomer. If people know where you came from that removes the mystery and you become just another student."

"So what happens when people find out where I went to school before?"

"They never will."

Blaine shook his head, his lips involuntarily twitching up into a smile. "Your confidence is pretty impressive."

Kurt smiled back, the twist of his lips far more cynical. "Trust me, I know all about the timing and release of information. I am an expert at keeping secrets."

"Ok. So you're my reputation guru. What's my next step?"

"Singing," Kurt told him firmly, "the lead role in a fantastic impromptu performance. By this time tomorrow everyone will know your name. In a good way. Not in an Amanda Peterson way."

"Tomorrow?" Blaine repeated, a thread of anxiety winding around his heart. "That's hardly any time to practice." And he hadn't sang the lead role in anything for months. He was bound to be out of practice. One day just wasn't enough time.

"Yes, tomorrow." Kurt patted his arm. "Don't panic. I already have the perfect song in mind and Rachel has agreed to help you rehearse this afternoon. You can stay late after school, can't you?"

Blaine wasn't sure why he nodded, why he wasn't protesting that he needed more time. "I'll just need to let my parents know where I am," he replied, his head reeling. "I might need a ride home too."

"We can find someone to drive you home, it shouldn't be a problem. I'm sure I can, and if I can't then there's always Puck."

"I don't know if I want to be alone in a car with him for half an hour. No offense, but I'm not entirely convinced he doesn't want to punch me in the face."

Kurt laughed, the sound of it musical. "That's just his ego showing, ignore it, he's like that with everyone at first."

"Who's like what with everyone?" Blaine heard someone ask, and was shocked to discover that they were standing by the glee table already, the few other kids already there listening in.

"Puck," Kurt supplied.

Artie nodded. "Puck has a bad boy reputation that he works really hard to keep intact, even though all of us know he's really harmless. He'll ease up on the glaring when he gets to know you."

"So he's really like that with everyone?" Blaine asked, taking a seat at the table.

On the opposite side of the table Tina nodded. "He's totally a nice guy. Last year he actually tried to stop Ka-... some boys from throwing slushies at us."

"Wait. People used to throw slushies at you?"

Kurt sighed dramatically. "Sadly, we weren't always this popular."

"Last year we were losers," Artie informed him dryly, "kids actually used to steal my wheelchair and make a competition out of putting it in the weirdest places. One time the school had to call the fire department because it got put in a tree."

"But then the murders happened," Tina continued, "and things just sort of changed. We did the benefit concert and became celebrities." She shrugged. "It's a macabre way of gaining celebrity status, but I like the macabre so I think it's kinda cool."

"Sometimes there's a price for popularity," Kurt stated pragmatically. "Your price," he added, "will be spending an entire rehearsal alone with Rachel."

Blaine couldn't actually imagine it would be that bad until he was there in the choir room singing the introduction to Teenage Dream for what felt like the fiftieth time. Rachel, it turned out, was a perfectionist of the worst kind. She told him to go from the heart and let it flow, then came back with a ton of corrections and helpful little suggestions. He recognised the show-pony type from the competitions he used to sing in and wondered whether she didn't suffer the kind of stage-mothering he was glad he'd never had to deal with.

His own mother, when he'd called to let her know that he'd be late, wasn't the stage mother type. She glossed right over the details about why he was staying late and focussed on the fact that he was with friends. "See?" she'd said proudly, "I told you that you'd be making friends before you knew it!"

Blaine had wanted to tell her that it was just a practice session and not to get her hopes up, but he hadn't wanted to be rude in front of Rachel. Finally, almost two hours later, he had the song down in a way that Rachel deemed perfect. By that point he was sure he'd be able to sing the entire thing backwards with his eyes closed (a capella). When he said so to Rachel she just beamed at him and said; "Well I'm sure you won't have to do that, but as a fellow performer you should know that memorisation is part of the foundation of an outstanding performance."

"So is sleep," Blaine replied, gathering up his things and the sheet music Rachel had provided. "And that was one exhausting rehearsal. I think it's about time I went home and crashed."

"By all means, don't let me keep you from getting your rest. I myself always find it refreshing to have a short nap after a vigorous rehearsal."

"Ok. I guess I'll see you tomorrow then."He smiled. "And Rachel, thanks for practicing with me." Blaine started towards the door. He got half way there before he realised he still didn't know exactly how he was getting home. Presumably someone would be driving him, but he'd never gotten a straight answer as to who.

He decided to go to the parking lot and see if someone was waiting for him there. If nobody was, he thought to himself, then he'd text Kurt and ask him. And failing that, there was always calling his mother and begging a ride from her. With that in mind Blaine walked through the empty halls of McKinley, his footsteps echoing a little in the silence. There were only a few cars left in the parking lot, none of which he recognised. He was just about to pull out his phone when a horn honked, startling him into looking up.

An arm was sticking out the driver's side window of a beat up truck, waving him over.

Blaine trotted over and peered into the car to see Puck sitting in the front seat. "Hi. So I guess you're my ride?"

"Yup," Puck responded, leaning over to unlock the passenger side door from the inside. "That's me. The fucking Puckerman express, here to get your ass home."

"I appreciate it," Blaine said, then hurried around to slide in to the passenger seat. He shut the door, put on his seatbelt, and stuffed his bag into the foot well just as Puck turned on the engine. It rumbled like a large, grumpy animal disturbed from a nap, windows rattling, and soft, staticky music coming from the speakers.

Puck reached for the radio and turned the tuning knob a little until the static disappeared, then adjusted the volume. "Hope you like classic rock," he commented, taking the brake off, "'cause that's what you're getting."

"That's fine," Blaine replied, feeling a little bit awkward.

The car started to move, going slow until they were out of the parking lot before Puck abruptly changed gears and sped off down the road. Blaine figured he should probably tell the other boy his address.

"I live at 16 Haywood, by the way," he said. "It's near –"

"Yeah, I know where that is," Puck cut him off. "Kurt already told me. I looked it up on the map earlier."

"Oh. Good." Blaine shifted in the seat and looked out the windshield, arms crossed over himself.

"Jesus. I don't bite."

The amused statement was so unexpected that Blaine jumped a little. He looked back at Puck. "What?"

"I don't bite," Puck repeated, glanced back at him with a smirk. "I'm not gonna drive you to some remote location and kill you. I'm an asshole, yeah. But you're Kurt's friend and you're in glee, that automatically makes you my friend too."

"Not really," Blaine replied, shaking his head. "Nothing automatically makes anyone friends with anyone else."

"Bull."

"I'm just saying...I haven't been at school all that long. I don't really know who's my friend yet and who isn't."

"New Directions are your friends," Puck stated as if it were absolute fact, something already set in stone. "What the hell more do you need? Popularity?"

It was a dig and Blaine knew it. He could tell by the way the other boy had said it. "It wouldn't hurt," he admitted. "It might be nice to be popular for a change."

"Because you weren't at your last school, right?"

The sly smirk tipped him off. "Kurt told you," Blaine accused quietly. He didn't like that idea, or thinking that Kurt might have been talking about him behind his back. Especially about things he really didn't want to get turned into gossip at this new school.

"That you're gay, you got kicked around, and life pretty much sucked for you?" Puck shrugged. "Don't take it personally. Kurt tells me everything."

"Then he also would have told you that this popularity plan wasn't my idea."

Puck laughed at that. He took his eyes off the road to grin at Blaine. "Yeah, he didn't need to tell me that. It's _always_ Kurt's idea."

Blaine frowned out the window, thinking that he was missing something there. He was starting to get reminded of teen drama movies with scheming, bitchy popular kids again. But then again, he realised, if he remembered those correctly then as long as he didn't steal anyone's boyfriend (or too much of the spotlight) he'd be fine. Better than, actually.


	4. Chapter 4

**Warning**: AU, adult themes, potential creepiness, mentions of death and bullying.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment.  
><strong>Author Notes<strong>: Someone asked if this story would end in Klaine. So, just as a warning for any folks hanging out for a happy ending... this is the murderverse. Even if there is Klaine, it will not end happily.**  
><strong>

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><p>.<p>

As it turned out, popularity agreed with Blaine. The supposedly impromptu song and dance number in the middle of the cafeteria was an instant success that propelled him into the 'in crowd' seemingly within seconds. Suddenly people knew his name, and knew him as more than just 'the new kid' or 'Kurt's friend'. He was Blaine Anderson, part of the it group. And in that retrospect of walking down the hallway and being _known_ Blaine found it hard to imagine that he'd ever been worried.

The pressure and stress from the morning before the performance was a distant memory. A long history as a nobody completely erased in the span of one four minute song. He decided then and there that Kurt was right about his past – no one from McKinley should ever find out. He was determined to never let it bleed through, to wear the confident and mysterious persona that had been created for him.

It was easy to fit in all of a sudden. Easy to wear the clothes that he'd picked out with Kurt over the course of several shopping trips. Smart-casual gear, things that made him look trendy without looking gaudy or like he was trying too hard. Being cool was effortless. And being met at his locker in the mornings was no longer a surprise.

He'd noticed before that Kurt had a tendency to hold court during the mornings the Cheerios didn't practice, but it wasn't until he'd found himself in the centre of that group several times over that he realised he'd somehow become one of its leaders.

That morning, almost a month after he'd sung Teenage Dream in the cafeteria, the group clustered between his and Kurt's lockers was unusually sombre.

"What's happening?" Blaine asked, a puzzled frown on his face. "Why is everyone so down today?"

"You didn't hear?"

"Hear what?"

"They found the last of the bodies," Tina answered, an odd note to her voice that was half reverent and half petrified. "A demolition crew found it before they tore down the building it was in."

"It was on the news last night and in the paper this morning," Finn confirmed, "my mom almost didn't let me come to school she was so freaked."

Blaine was about to comment that he hadn't heard anything about it when he heard a familiar voice scoff. "Please. Finding the body doesn't mean that anyone's in danger," Kurt said coolly, shutting his locker with more force than necessary so the slam came with an echo. "The killer is long gone and has been for the better part of a year. It makes no sense that he –"

"Or she," Mercedes interrupted.

"Or she," Kurt agreed, "would stick around any longer than necessary, especially after that rather in depth investigation."

"Unless he or she lived around here," Santana commented. "What?" she added when everyone looked at her. "I'm just saying. Six guys from the same school and nobody thinks maybe the killer lived around here? That guy totally knew what he wanted and how to get it. Only a local would know so much about the area."

"There's a lot to be said for research," Tina pointed out.

"Yeah," Mercedes nodded, holding her binder a little bit tighter, "the killer could be obsessive or something. Maybe he or she travels around all over the country and does the same thing all different towns. How would we know? We only know about it this time because it was six kids that went missing. There's nothing saying they don't normally just stay under the radar."

"It could've been a murder suicide thing," Finn piped up. "Like on CSI last night. He wasn't caught because he already killed himself, right?"

"Whatevs." Santana tossed her hair over her shoulder. "I still say they're a local and now that the last body is found you and Puckerman better watch that you're not next."

"Why would they be next?" Blaine jumped in this time before anyone else could open their mouths.

Santana gave him a disgusted look. "Don't you know _anything_ about last year?"

"I was busy having a life," Blaine shot back, the words falling from his mouth automatically, "being as I'm not actually from here."

"The killer targeted jocks," Tina explained.

"The killer targeted bullies," Kurt corrected breezily. "And as fascinating as playing catch-up the new boy is, sorry Blaine, we're all about to be late to class."

The timely reminder came just seconds before the bell rang, proving Kurt's perfect sense of timing. The group broke up and went their separate ways, hurrying to get to class before they were officially counted as being late. Blaine left with them, looking back over his shoulder to watch Kurt slip confidently into his first class of the day.

Blaine just barely made it into his class before roll call. He sat in his desk surrounded by silent admirers who knew practically nothing about him and began to realise that he knew practically nothing about McKinley past what he'd learned in that one hour with his mother and Principal Figgins during his enrolment.

That was probably why he found himself in the middle of the school library during lunch, feeling a little bit like a detective as he sat in front of a computer screen and looked up the events of October last year.

There were a lot of articles archived on news websites, most of which gave the same general information. At first it was just a small notice about a local boy who'd gone missing. Then as the weeks wore on and more boys disappeared the articles got larger and more in depth. When the first body was found it graduated to a front page spread and the first reference to 'The Lima Killer'. The news articles dated November were the same, occasionally with new details released as the police discovered them.

The killer used a knife, Blaine read, and first subdued the victims before driving them to a remote location to kill them. Of the bodies recovered all of them showed signs of head trauma. The killer was suspected to be in his twenties or thirties, physically fit, and of above average intelligence. Blaine also found an interview with a police psychologist that theorised that the killer would most likely be working class, stuck in a job that he finds menial. The inherent violence of the crimes implied that the killer was angry, possibly choosing his victims as a proxy for himself as a youth. The lack of sexual elements or other indications of excitement ruled out the presence of a paraphilia. (He had to look that word up on Wikipedia, and marvelled that the school didn't block the content of the page.)

In December the investigation surrounding the disappearances seemed to come to a standstill. Every so often an article would pop up, but in general the news didn't have much to say. By January there was nothing. And then, finally, an article about the newly interred memorial out the front of the school. This last article was accompanied by pictures of each of the victims, including the one who's body had yet to be found.

The photos were small, simple portraits like the kind found in school yearbooks. They showed smiling young men with broad shoulders and football jerseys or letterman jackets. Suddenly he could see why exactly Finn and Puck might fit the bill for potential victims. Both of them were tall, both were jocks. Only one of them was described as ever being a bully.

Blaine frowned at that, wondering if Kurt's statement earlier held any truth. He remembered something Brittany had said about Puck setting fire to things and tossing kids in dumpsters. If Puck had been that bad then how bad had these kids been?

And more importantly, if Puck had been that bad then why would Kurt have started dating him?

To be honest he spent more time puzzling over that last question than he should have. Enough time that when he eventually made it to glee that afternoon he was beginning to realise an embarrassing, potentially dangerous fact. He may be developing a crush on Kurt. And if he didn't keep it low key then it could potentially lead to damaging his still so new popularity. It wasn't so much that he was worried about coming out, not now anyway. No, the real problem was what Kurt himself would think about it.

Blaine resolved to keep it on the down low. Just in case. He didn't want to risk losing a good friend over something like a high school crush.

He arrived at the choir room that afternoon just this side of early, when the room was still empty enough that he had his pick of chairs. Blaine chose a seat in the back row and dropped his bag on the chair beside his. He greeted the others as they arrived, feeling like a somebody when they seemed to choose their own seats based on where he was sitting. Only two more chairs in the back row remained empty – the one with Blaine's bag and the chair beside that one.

The empty chair was filled first. Puck walked into the room alone, stirring up a cloud of concern that he flat out ignored in favour of slumping down in the back row. Blaine opened his mouth to voice a greeting but was cut off before he could get the first syllable out; "Dude, if you're going to ask me if I'm ok I swear I'm gonna have to light something on fire. I'm that sick of people asking."

Blaine held up both hands. "I was just going to say hello."

"Oh. Fine then." Puck slumped even further down in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. "Hello."

"Puck," Tina piped up from the row in front of them, "are you sure you're –"

"Fire," Puck repeated. "I've got a lighter, like, right here."

"Puck." The warning came from Mr. Schuester, who entered the choir room with a folder tucked under one arm and Rachel hot on his heels. "Come on, I thought we were past the whole fire thing."

"Not if people don't stop getting on my nerves," Puck muttered rebelliously.

"It may be getting on your nerves," Mr. Schuester said, putting his folder down on top of the piano, "but it's out of friendship and concern. And I have to admit I'm a little concerned to be hearing about behaviour I thought was in the past."

"It _is_ in the past," Puck insisted over the heads of the rest of the choir, who weren't even pretending not to be listening, "I'm just sick of being the freak show. Nobody's gonna come kill me, so everyone should just get over it."

There was something so final about that statement that everybody did seem to 'just get over it'. At least for the rest of the practice. Nobody said a word about murder or potential kidnap, which meant that Puck kept his threats of fire to himself. Blaine couldn't help but wonder if the other glee kids were just making a big deal out of nothing... But then he remembered that the events of last year weren't actually a whole year gone.

His only consolation was that he definitely wasn't the killer's type. He was too short, played no sports, and had never bullied anyone in his life. Even if the killer did come back, he was safe.

.

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><p>.<p>

Puck lit out after practice like a cat with its tail on fire and didn't stop until he was sitting in his truck in the parking lot of a supermarket. He glared at the wheel, his hands tight on the faded, cracking leather. He'd thought they were past all of this crap. This scrutiny. Judging from the day he'd just had? It was like they were back at the start, right back when Kurt had first suggested it might be a good idea to 'tone it down' and fly under the radar.

He'd taken the suggestion to heart, recognising the value of not being in the spotlight.

If you do the right research you'll find that serial killers tend to stick to a pattern. They develop a set of behaviours, a psychological fingerprint. They refine their techniques, their competency might grow, but the patterns remain the same.

Puck had done his research and he knew this. He could even see it in himself, smart enough to recognise that he enjoyed the killing more when it happened a certain way. He preferred it up close, preferred the use of a knife, a blade that he could feel sinking into flesh. He preferred it to be personal, but was smart enough to know that it couldn't always be.

Classes these days were an exercise in sensibility and a filler for his time. Between November and January he'd managed to drag his C average up to a solid B+, a respectable set of grades that had his teachers patting themselves on the back and his mother looking at him like she thought he'd finally turned his life around.

But Puck was concentrating on school because it was the smartest thing for a guy like him to do.

He'd talked it over with Kurt one night, two weeks after Karofsky's murder when the lack of planning started to feel strange. He'd gotten used to solving problems, to thinking a lot and putting time into working on the details. Schoolwork, Kurt had told him, would help keep him occupied. It would also have the handy side-effect of removing him from the list of McKinley's no-hopers, lifting suspicion and getting those in authority to get off his back.

It was working. Oh so well.

Too bloody well.

He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there before his phone rang. Set to silent it buzzed in the pocket of his jacket, barely loud enough to hear. One white-knuckled hand slowly pulled itself from the wheel and dipped into his pocket to retrieve the phone. He answered without looking to see who was calling.

"Yeah?"

"I hope you haven't gone off to do anything stupid," Kurt's voice poured into his ear, sarcasm hiding the hint of worry Puck knew would be there.

"I'm sitting in the parking lot outside some store," Puck replied, his reassurance grudging. "I'm not gonna do anything stupid."

"Good. My dad's working late tonight and he's obviously buying into the general paranoia because he's demanded that I invite someone over 'to be safe'."

"Yeah right, and I'm sure you had nothing to do with that."

Kurt ignored him. "So I'd like you to pick something up on your way over. Chinese, perhaps? In celebration of past deeds."

A quick pause while Puck pulled out his wallet and checked his current supply of cash. "You got it," he answered finally. "Give me about an hour."

It took him a little less than an hour to retrieve the takeout and get himself to Kurt's place. He stood on the front step for just a couple of seconds before the door opened – he hadn't even needed to knock. "Here," he said, stepping inside and holding out the takeout, "you like the duck, right?"

"Magic Li's," Kurt observed, taking the bag from him with a smile. "How sweet of you to remember."

"How could I forget our first date?" Puck joked, throwing an arm around his boyfriend.

As always, like all of his visits to the Hummel house, eventually they wound up in the basement, Puck lying casually across Kurt's bed while the other boy sat at the vanity table. It was always comfortable down here, whether they were talking, making out, or in the casual silence of two people who know each other well.

Right now they were silent, Puck watching Kurt apply moisturiser to his hands and face, a process full of delicate motions and careful flutters of eyelashes. Puck saw it as an outward manifestation of the care Kurt took to never let anyone know what he was really like. All of the careful movements, the application of a cold white cream, a way to solidify the mask Kurt wore in public. He was about to comment on the way it looked when something beeped and Kurt picked up his phone.

"Hm."

"What?"

Kurt started typing something into his phone. "I invited Blaine over for a movie night this weekend. Apparently he won't be able to get here before six if we do it on a Saturday. So... I think we'll change it to Friday and he can come here straight after school."

Puck frowned. "Blaine," he repeated dryly.

"Yes, Blaine." Kurt put his phone down again and turned to look at the other boy. "He's not any competition for you, believe me, so you can put that frown away thankyou."

"Come on," Puck scoffed, "like I'd be worried. I just don't get what you're doing with him. This whole mentor thing you've got going. What's up with that?"

"Aren't I allowed to have friends?" Kurt replied in that airy way he did when he was about to be particularly stubborn or difficult about something. "Blaine is a nice boy."

"He's a dork."

"Are you jealous?" Kurt asked, pointedly turning back towards the vanity mirror. "I think you're jealous. You don't like someone else taking up so much of my time."

"I just think you haven't figured this all the way through." Puck sat up properly, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "You're forgetting how close you can let people. As in not."

"I have close friends," Kurt argued, keeping his tone neutral. He put the lid back on a pot of moisturising cream and carefully placed it back in its drawer. "Mercedes, for example. Tina. Even Rachel, on occasion."

"That's different," Puck insisted. "That's girl talk."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "You are vastly underestimating the inclusiveness of 'girl talk'."

"Plus they know you," Puck continued as if he hadn't heard. "They knew you before you had a big secret to keep."

Kurt sighed. He stood and walked across the room to the nightstand beside his bed. He opened the second drawer, dumped the decoy magazines onto the bed, and pulled out a handful of battered photographs and pictures printed on computer paper. "I already had a secret," he said, dropping the pictures onto the bed one by one. "A secret I never, ever told anyone. Including Mercedes. I know how to handle secrets, Noah."

Puck picked up one of the photos, instantly recognising it as one that he'd given to the other boy. He turned it around to show Kurt the close up of a dead girl's head and shoulders. "And if he finds out anyway?"

Kurt snatched the photo back. "Then you kill him, ok? Is that what you wanted to hear?" Kurt took a breath and started picking up the photos to put them back in their hiding place at the bottom of the drawer. "If he ever finds out," Kurt said calmly, "then you take care of it."

"Just like I did before."

"But until then I need you to trust my judgement." Kurt shut the drawer and sat down on the bed beside his boyfriend. He bumped their shoulders together, reached over to twine their fingers together. "Do you trust me, Noah?"

"More than anyone."

Kurt leaned over to kiss him. "I trust you more than anyone," he agreed quietly. And, even more quiet; "Sometimes more than myself."


	5. Chapter 5

**Warning**: AU, adult themes, potential creepiness, mentions of death and bullying.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment.  
><strong>Author Notes<strong>: Someone asked if this story would end in Klaine. So, just as a warning for any folks hanging out for a happy ending... this is the murderverse. Even if there is Klaine, it will not end happily.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p>.<p>

Blaine reread the text from Kurt again before he put his phone down and went looking for his parents. He found his mother in the dining room, spectacles perched on her nose, a novel held in one hand. She put the book down as he entered and offered him a smile. "Come to say goodnight to your mother?"

"It's not that late," Blaine replied, pulling a chair out so he could take a seat opposite her at the table. "Actually, I just wanted to catch you up. Remember that movie night I mentioned?"

"The one with your friend Kurt," Mrs. Anderson nodded, obviously pleased with the idea that Blaine had friends who liked him enough to invite him over. "On Saturday."

"Yeah. Well, I just finished talking with him again and we've decided it would probably work better if we moved it to Friday. That way I can just ride home with him after school and you and dad don't have to drive in to Lima to drop me off..." Blaine trailed off, hoping it would be an easy yes.

"How would you be getting home the next day?" she asked.

"Kurt said he'd drive me on Saturday. I'd be home before dinner."

"Ok," Mrs. Anderson said, lips pressing together into a small smile. "But if you need to call you don't hesitate. It's good to see you making friends, honey."

"Yeah," Blaine said again, thinking about his social circle and the kids from glee, "it is."

He went back to his room and packed an overnight bag to take to school with him on Friday. A change of clothes, his 'signature' scent of deodorant cologne, and a pair of comfortable chocolate brown pyjamas. He knew it was a little overeager to already have his bag packed when tomorrow would only be Thursday, but Blaine felt it was justified. This was the first time a boy had asked him to stay over since he was ten years old, and the first 'movie night' with anyone since he'd come out at his old school. And to top it all off he'd yet to actually see more than the front room of Kurt's house.

He had to wonder what the other boy's room would be like, if it would be as fantastic as the boy himself. Blaine went to bed trying to picture what Kurt's room might look like, a part of him aware that if he wasn't careful he could find himself going down a very dangerous road.

"I don't have a crush on Kurt," he muttered aloud, lights off, face half-buried in his pillow.

He said it so firmly that even he believed it. Even if it was just for a moment.

Somehow Blaine breezed through Thursday without once thinking about the crush that he didn't have. He attended the morning gathering outside Kurt's locker, swanned through his classes, and survived a pop quiz before lunch. He spent his lunch at the glee table talking about homework and participating in the social politics required to stay on top in the in crowd.

"You know," Quinn commented towards the end of the lunch period, sharp blue eyes firmly trained on his face as she watched for reactions. "You've been at this school now for almost a couple of months and you're at the top of the food chain when it comes to social standing... but I haven't heard you going out on even one single date."

"That would be because I haven't," Blaine replied, covering his unease with a smooth smile.

"Why is that?" Quinn asked. "I know it's not a shortage of interested parties."

Blaine shrugged, "maybe I'm just pickier than most."

"Maybe you're a little bit gay."

The table fell mostly silent, all eyes turning to Blaine to watch his reaction. Panic flared up for a moment, but a quick sideways glance at Kurt served as a reminder of what he wanted to be. The other boy wasn't even looking at him, instead poking at something or other on his phone, completely unconcerned by Blaine's suddenly spotlighted sexuality. Calm, confident, totally unaffected by what other people thought. _Be like Kurt_, Blaine told himself.

He leaned back in his chair, giving Quinn a charming smile. "If I didn't know better I'd say you were a little upset, Quinn. Were you hoping I was going to ask you out?"

"I'd say you're too much on the short side. I don't date boys I don't need to stand on my toes to kiss."

"What a coincidence," Blaine said, looking her right in the eye, "neither do I."

He knew he'd handled the situation gracefully when she backed down and nobody else continued in her place. He might have given out more of a hint than he wanted to, but he decided it worked as a means of testing the water. Nobody was looking at him differently, nobody had opened their mouth to say anything derogatory. Give it another month maybe and he might be ready to actually come out at McKinley.

After that the afternoon seemed to go very quickly. It was like one moment he was walking into his first class after lunch and the next he was waiting at the bus stop after school.

On Friday morning he had difficulty stuffing his overnight bag into his locker, but somehow managed to do it without completely crushing the few other things he kept inside it. The only problem was that the second he opened his locker again the bag was bound to spill right out onto the floor, which meant he wouldn't be able to get to his textbooks. He decided to use it as an excuse to test something Kurt had told him once a couple of weeks ago; That if you just turned up to class and kept your eyes on the board most teachers wouldn't even notice the lack of books. And the ones that did wouldn't say a word. Not if you were one of the good students.

McKinley's teachers were all either burnt out alcoholics who just didn't care anymore or too busy being enthusiastic about their lesson plans to notice the finger details.

He was actually surprised when it turned out to be true.

He told Kurt about it during their one class together that day.

"Of course I was right," Kurt replied, idly doodling little cartoon characters into the margins of his notebook with a sparkly blue pencil. "I'm always right."

"Oh, of course. I should have known," Blaine joked. "Is there anything you don't know?"

"Hm, I'm sure there's something," Kurt gave him an odd sideways smile that Blaine tried not to think of as seductive. "But I haven't come across it yet."

"When you do, don't tell anyone," Blaine advised with a grin, "that way you can keep the appearance of omniscience you always seem to have."

"Flattery. I like it." The bell rang and Kurt stopped his doodling. "I'm going to be late getting out of class, I have to talk to Ms Spencer about my assignment. Can I meet you at my car?"

"Sure. I'll just sit on the hood until you get there."

"Ha ha. Touch my baby, Blaine Anderson, and they will never find your body."

Blaine laughed and waved to his friend as they went opposite ways down the hall.

.

* * *

><p>.<p>

The overnight bag leapt out of the locker as if making a desperate bid for freedom. Blaine caught it just before it hit the ground but wasn't quick enough to catch the two textbooks that followed it. The books fell to the floor, splayed open to random pages of math and French. He sighed and picked them up, hoisted the bag onto one shoulder and put the books back where they belonged. He was out at the car with time to spare and leaned against the big black tank of a machine as he watched the parking lot slowly empty.

Most of the cars were gone, only ten minutes after school ended, when Kurt finally emerged from the main building and trotted towards the car.

"Everything good?" Blaine asked.

"Everything is great," Kurt replied, unlocking the car with the remote.

Everything was pretty great, Blaine had to agree. Kurt's music of choice that day was The Beatles. They sang along in the car on the way to the Hummel household, stopping only when Kurt finally cut the engine in the driveway. For the first time Blaine got to see further into the house than just the front room. He got the tour of the upper level first before the boys retreated to the basement – Kurt's room – to watch movies and eat popcorn. Plain, low-fat popcorn on the white couch in the middle of Kurt's very sophisticated, massive white room.

They got through two movies before dinner time, at which point they trooped upstairs and had dinner with Kurt's dad. Mr. Hummel was at first intimidating and not at all what Blaine had been expecting. Over the course of the meal though Blaine spoke to the man enough to lose his shyness and decided that Mr. Hummel was the kind of dad every kid should have.

Back down in the basement he and Kurt watched another movie before finally calling it quits and changing into their pyjamas. (Blaine would openly admit that he was impressed to discover Kurt's own private bathroom in the basement, small as it was.) He tried very hard not to let on that Kurt in blue silk pyjamas was probably the cutest thing he'd ever seen.

The lights finally went off at a quarter to midnight, both boys sharing Kurt's queen bed on different sides. Blaine wasn't entirely sure that Mr. Hummel knew about that particular sleeping arrangement, and if he did then Blaine was sure he didn't know that both boys were gay. He probably thought it wasn't a problem, Blaine realised, given that Kurt already had a boyfriend.

He lay on his side in the dark contemplating that fact, silent and listening to Kurt breathing. They'd spoken a lot that night, sharing silly secrets and playing stupid games like 'what would you do with a million dollars'. Now, lying there in Kurt's bed he couldn't help but feel strangely tense. He'd never actually been in a bed with another boy before.

"Blaine?" Kurt's voice piped up in a whisper behind him, breaking the silence.

"Yeah?"

"Are you still awake?"

Blaine rolled over onto his other side so he could look at Kurt, squinting in the dark. "That's a silly question."

He thought he saw Kurt smile at him. "I suppose it is," the other boy murmured. "I don't think I'm ready to sleep yet," he confessed in the same sort of whisper. "Are you?"

"...no," Blaine replied, tucking his pillow up tighter against his shoulder. "I don't know if I can sleep. It's sort of strange to have someone else in the bed."

"I know." There was a brief silence. Kurt moved around on the bed, blankets shifting, until he was propped up a little on one elbow. "I haven't slept with anyone before, with anyone beside me in bed."

"Not even Puck?" Blaine asked in a whisper, then held his breath because it felt like he was pushing up against a boundary that he didn't dare overstep.

"I've never slept with Puck," Kurt whispered back.

"You've never...?" Blaine paused, feeling that boundary again. He took a breath, the darkness and the late hour giving him courage he wouldn't have had in the daylight. "You haven't had sex with him?"

There was another silence. "No," Kurt said finally, sounding strangely meek. "We haven't gone further than touching... There's never been the time or the... privacy." There was another pause while Blaine digested that, a tiny ray of hope lighting up in his chest where it didn't deserve to be. "I've never told anyone that before," Kurt added.

"That you're a virgin?" Blaine pressed, feeling his cheeks heat up in a blush. He was glad it was dark so Kurt couldn't see. "I haven't even kissed anyone," he offered. "The only boy I ever liked at my old school was straight... I never told him, but it must have been pretty obvious anyway. The other gay kid at school, the other boy who was out, we went out together a couple of times but nothing ever happened. We were more like just friends. And then..." Blaine trailed off, not sure he wanted to tell Kurt about that just yet.

"And then?" Kurt prompted softly.

Blaine hesitated. Then Kurt shifted a little bit again and his fingers brushed against Blaine's hand, points of heat against his skin. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and continued. "And then one night when we were out together a bunch of guys from school beat us up. It was... It was pretty bad. I was in the hospital for about a week and on crutches pretty much all summer. That's why I transferred. The other boys weren't expelled or anything. They were arrested but... there wasn't enough evidence to charge them with anything, so..."

"...I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

"Blaine..." Kurt shifted a little closer, just a couple of inches that made it seem like they were suddenly in a bubble of intimacy that hadn't been there before. Blaine could feel the tension between them and hoped he wasn't just imagining it.

"Yes...?"

"I want to do something," Kurt said, barely audible, "but if I do..."

"I won't tell anyone," Blaine promised softly. "I wouldn't breathe a word."

"I know," Kurt replied softly.

A hand, soft and impossibly warm, found and cupped his cheek. Blaine closed his eyes at the feeling, breath stuttering at the touch of Kurt's thumb to his bottom lip. Then suddenly there were lips against his in a slow, barely there kiss. They didn't' say anything afterwards.

Blaine didn't know how long it took him to actually fall asleep but he knew he must have because when he next opened his eyes Kurt wasn't in the bed and there was a light on in the bathroom. It took him a moment to realise that anything unusual was going on and that what must have woken him up was the one-sided conversation he could hear. The bathroom door was slightly ajar and through it he could hear Kurt's voice talking softly to someone else. The pauses between talking pointed to a phone call, and sure enough when Blaine looked Kurt's mobile was no longer on the nightstand where it had been earlier.

"... what I'm doing, Noah." A pause. "Well if it comes up -... Then you know that I have everything under control. If there was a problem I would tell you about it, and since I haven't said a word about any kind of trouble we can safely assume that you don't need to buy any more bleach."

There was a long pause after that, during which Blaine could swear he heard Kurt sigh impatiently.

"It's nice to see you handling this with all the grace of a hick with a chainsaw," Kurt's voice, cuttingly sarcastic, echoed just a touch off the bathroom walls, and was quickly followed by; "Fine, bowie knife. Whatever."

For some reason that struck a chord with Blaine, something that made him feel particularly uneasy. And not just about eavesdropping on Kurt's half of the conversation. He wondered if he should say something, make some noise to let the other boy know that he was awake. The longer the next silence stretched on the more awkward he felt it would be to try and announce himself. Eventually Blaine decided the best course of action was to just lie there and wait for Kurt to come back. He could 'wake up' when Kurt returned from the bathroom.

"Why don't you just go out and kill a hooker?" Kurt asked sarcastically, with a roll of his eyes that Blaine could practically hear in the air. "I hear that's a good way to relieve tension... Well you were asking for it... Look, I'll see you tomorrow and we can talk then. Right now it's... almost three in the morning, Noah."

There was another short silence, then Kurt's voice piped up again, this time sounding much less annoyed. "Yes, I know. I love you too... Goodnight, Noah."

Blaine listened carefully to see if anything else was going to bed said, but all he heard was the sink faucet turning on and water running. There was the splash of hands under water, then silence again. The bathroom light turned off a few seconds later. Footsteps told him where Kurt was, and Blaine rolled over just before his friend reached the bed. "Hey..."

"Blaine," Kurt replied, surprised. "Did I wake you?"

"Sort of," Blaine replied, deciding to stick with his earlier plan. "I heard the water going and realised you weren't in the bed."

"I'm sorry." Kurt climbed back in under the covers, lying down on his side. "I didn't realise it was so loud."

"It wasn't. I guess I'm just not used to sleeping at other people's houses."

To Blaine it felt like the silence they fell into was uncomfortable, but he had no way of telling how Kurt was feeling. It was too dark to see the other boy's face, the tiny bits of light in the room barely enough to make out Kurt's silhouette. He listened to Kurt's breathing slowly even out into sleep and lay there awake in the dark.

Blaine couldn't sleep. He wasn't sure why but suddenly he didn't feel very comfortable in Kurt's bed anymore.


	6. Chapter 6

**Warning**: AU, adult themes, potential creepiness, mentions of death and bullying.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment.  
><strong>Author Notes<strong>: Sorry for the delay in posting, real life had temporarily took my internet from me.**  
><strong>

* * *

><p>.<p>

Kurt woke up early, same as he always did, the events of the night before still chasing slow circles in his head. Blaine had stayed over, was in fact still in Kurt's bed. And he had most likely been awake when Kurt had called Puck.

It was dangerous ground and he knew that.

Chances were good that Blaine had overheard at least part of that conversation and even though it was nowhere near conclusive proof, Kurt knew that he'd still said enough to raise a few questions. The hooker comment can't have helped, he thought. He just hoped Blaine hadn't caught the worst of it, that taking the call to the bathroom had in fact put enough distance between them to give the conversation privacy. Otherwise he'd need to find some way to explain it if it ever came up, which was more fancy footwork than Kurt was prepared for at present.

But if Blaine had heard anything damning then he didn't let on.

Saturday morning and it was as if nothing had happened. Maybe it hadn't. Kurt wasn't sure he wanted to stake anything on that kind of luck. As always, Kurt made his own luck.

He smiled at Blaine over breakfast, made the usual small talk about weekend plans and his scheduled shopping trip with Mercedes. Subjects and words carefully chosen to remind the other boy that he was normal. Nothing was out of the ordinary and the day could play on without paranoid interruption.

He flirted for good measure, played on the crush he knew the other boy had.

When he drove Blaine home he made sure there was never much of a silence in the car, and when he parked in front of Blaine's house he made an aborted movement as if he were going in for a kiss but changed his mind at the last second. Puck wouldn't like it, certainly wouldn't like that Kurt wasn't just giving the go-ahead to get Blaine out of the way, but just this once Puck didn't need to hear about it.

Somehow he seemed to know anyway.

"He heard you. The phone call." Puck accused that night, the both of them sitting in his truck outside the old abandoned drive-in, cups of steaming hot coffee in hand. "He did, right? I know you, so don't try and lie to me about this."

"I wasn't going to," Kurt replied, breathing in the steam from his low fat mocha.

"You were just going to forget to tell me. I'm not stupid," Puck continued when Kurt didn't say anything else. "I can see what's going on here."

"Oh?" Kurt arched an eyebrow. "And what is that?"

"You like him. Maybe not like _attracted_ to him, but enough that you don't want to have to kill him."

Kurt felt his back stiffen, muscles tightening. If he held on to his coffee any tighter the Styrofoam cup would buckle. "You take that back," he said, cold.

"What?" Puck asked, purposefully antagonising. "So it's not the truth then?"

"You think that I'd rather put us both in danger than maybe let you kill him?" Kurt snapped, eyes narrowed in a glare that normally set people to cowering. Puck didn't even blink. "You think," Kurt continued, "I'd rather risk being exposed as a freak, as an accessory to murder?"

"Would you?" Puck demanded, turned around in his seat to face the other boy.

"You think I can't keep secrets from him."

"I think you like him too much to be objective."

Frustrated, feeling put upon, Kurt gulped from his coffee to stall for a moment of time to think. The last few mouthfuls disappeared too quickly. He balanced the empty cup between his knees, looking at it rather than Puck. "Blaine isn't a danger to anyone, and he's not a bully."

"And that matters?"

Kurt resisted glancing back at the other boy. He knew that if he did Puck's face would give him his answer. The look in those deep brown eyes, the danger, the memory of hot naked skin and half-buried bodies. "No," Kurt said finally. "No, I suppose it doesn't."

"Then I should kill him," Puck said. His hand reached over, slid across Kurt's knee and took the empty cup from between them. "Before he figures anything out. Before he gets to be real trouble."

"...Maybe he won't be." That was probably wishful thinking.

Kurt slid sideways across the seat until he was pressed up against Puck's side. "Until we know for certain that he actually knows anything, or that he would actually tell anyone, there's no reason to act. Plan it," he added, stroking his fingers up and down Puck's denim-covered thigh, "think of how to do it without sparking any attention... But wait until I say so."

.

* * *

><p>.<p>

Sometimes when a person's perceptions change there's a moment where they realise just how obvious things really were. Blaine was not at that moment. Blaine was still in the build-up, the times when the pieces of the puzzle still didn't quite fit together into a whole. He had everything in circumstantial evidence, in hearsay and guesswork. None of it was solid.

Suspicions filled him, battling his natural attraction for a cool, confidant boy who had helped catapult him into popularity. Whenever Kurt smiled at him he got distracted, like suddenly it wouldn't even matter if his suspicions were true. Kurt smiled and Blaine found himself coming up with justifications.

Maybe, he would say to himself, maybe Kurt didn't know. Or, better, maybe he was wrong.

This strange suspicion that the killer wasn't a perfect match for the police profile could just be paranoia. Post traumatic stress. Knowing that teenage boys were capable of violence didn't mean that they were capable of murder.

Murder.

It was such a morbid, terrifying word. It had written itself on the inside of his eyelids like a memory tattoo, a constant reminder of all the bits and pieces that didn't quite fit.

He knew he was being overly obsessive when he found himself walking towards the memorial during lunch on Monday, the gray skies and lightly spitting rain having chased everyone else inside.

Blaine stood there in front of the memorial outside the school, feeling strangely sombre.

Six names engraved onto a brass plaque at the base of a marble block.

"October, 2009," Blaine read aloud, "While you may now be gone, you'll live forever in our hearts."

He stood there a little longer in silence, wondering about the six names and the boys they had belonged to. He thought about the rumours he'd heard, the statements Kurt had made about the boys having been bullies. The newspaper articles about their deaths weren't a lot to go on. All of this information he had that he'd dug up in drips and drabs, in the end it amounted to pretty much nothing.

"Would you like to guess who they were before they died?"

Blaine jumped at the sound of another voice. He looked over his shoulder to see his mentor, arms crossed, looking at the memorial plaque in disdain. He wanted to ask what Kurt was doing out here, but he didn't want to seem discourteous. After all, plenty of students must have passed by here since the last body had been discovered.

"Everyone likes to remake them as the poor, heroic victims," Kurt continued when Blaine didn't say anything. "The sports stars and the sons of respectable families. Nobody likes the idea that those poor dead boys were actually the least likeable, most viciously bigoted bullies in the school. That would be speaking ill of the dead."

Blaine didn't know what he could say to that. He stayed silent and watched Kurt walk up to the memorial, crouch down to run his fingertips over the writing engraved into the brass.

"These boys made my life a living hell," Kurt mused, voice barely above a murmur. "They really don't deserve to be remembered with fondness."

"You suggested the memorial," Blaine pointed out, wondering now if it hadn't just been a ploy. A stroke of genius by an opportunist who had no reason to mourn. He watched Kurt's lips tilt upwards into a thoughtful smile.

"It was a perfect move to make," he admitted, and turned to look up at Blaine. Blue-grey eyes narrowed a little. "You don't underestimate me. Do you think I'm callous?" Kurt asked as he stood again. "Cruel, to tell the truth about not being sad."

"No," Blaine answered, though deep down inside he couldn't help but think that it didn't seem natural. He couldn't help comparing it to what he'd felt that summer, in the weeks after he'd been let out of hospital. Would he have been sad if his bullies had died? He wouldn't have, he thought. "They bullied you," he added. "You only saw their bad sides so it makes sense you wouldn't mourn them."

"Should I be glad they're gone? Or is that going too far?"

Uneasy with the way the conversation was going, Blaine glanced away from the other boy and back at the plaque. "It's logical," he said, choosing the diplomatic answer, "given what they did."

"Should I thank the man who killed them, Blaine?" Kurt asked lightly.

Blaine shook his head. "Nobody deserves to die," he said quietly, but with the memory of his own bullies fresh in his mind he couldn't find it in him to feel it.

"Nathan cornered me once. He was ready to beat me bloody in a dark, dank alleyway, ready to finally graduate to hate crime. But something in the shadows distracted him, and they say that night was the night he must have died. So should I thank the killer for saving me, or should I feel like it was my fault? Oh!" Kurt gasped dramatically, flinging his arms up and looking at the cloudy sky, "if only he had beaten me he may still be alive."

The words hung heavy in the air. As heavy as Blaine's silence. Kurt lowered his arms and smiled at him. Took a step forward and reached out to touch his chin. "It's just a memorial, Blaine."

"I didn't know you were so morbid," Blaine commented, skin tingling in a dangerous way where Kurt had touched him.

"Aren't you?"

Kurt had a point and he knew it. Blaine shook his head. He turned his back on the memorial. "We should get some coffee," he suggested. "My treat."

Anything to change the subject. Anything to forget the chills threatening to creep up his spine when he thought about the dead boys.

At his old school Blaine hadn't skipped a single class. A few times, when the bullying had been at its worst, he had simply refused to get out of bed and go to school but even that had made him feel awful enough that he may as well have been sick. This time around he wasn't sure what to feel.

They took Kurt's car because he was the one of them who actually had one, and a licence to go with it. A short time later the huge tank of a car was parked outside the Lima Bean cafe, a place Blaine had come to know as a social Mecca. Coffee appeared to be a staple of all social outings whether they ended good or bad. Today was no exception. No matter what happened he could always rely on the steadying warmth of a medium drip house blend to get him through.

"Was it bad?" Kurt asked him when they were seated, the two youngest people on a Monday afternoon.

"Was what bad?"

"What happened to you. I know," Kurt continued, watching Blaine from across the table, "that people react differently to things. For example, the one time I ever saw Puck beaten up he was angry, but largely unaffected. Whereas if it had been me I'm positive I would have been a mess. So what was it for you?"

Blaine paused a moment, their earlier conversation still ringing through his mind. "It was bad for me," he answered finally. "It was very bad."

The two boys fell into a short silence. Kurt's eyes dropped away from Blaine's face. He picked up a napkin from the small stack on the table and started ripping it into perfect neat strips. By the time he spoke again the strips were already beginning to form a small pile on the table. "It was bad for me too."

"It's hard to imagine you ever being bullied," Blaine said truthfully. "You're so well adjusted I can hardly imagine you being anything else."

The short, bitter laugh he got in response was a surprise. Kurt shook his head, a wry smile twisting his lips. "Everyone is a little messed up, Blaine. Even me, difficult as that is to imagine."

"So what's messed up about you?"

The second he asked it Blaine suddenly wanted to take it back. It felt like tempting fate, poking the sleeping lion. Deep down he knew he didn't want to learn that Kurt wasn't the perfect boy he imagined him to be. But it had been said and now there was no taking it back. Rather than try, Blaine kept his mouth shut and played with a sugar packet.

Kurt's smile remained cool and humourless. "I'm thankful to the Lima Killer," he reminded his friend. "I believe that would count as messed up, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah... But," Blaine offered Kurt's own quote back at him, attempting once again to lighten the mood, "everyone is a little messed up."

"Are you?" Kurt asked, eyebrows arched upwards, punctuating his sentence.

"You'll find my picture alongside the dictionary definition," Blaine joked.

He wasn't sure if he meant it or not. The strange paranoid ideas that kept popping into his head implied that not everything was ok. The fact that he had a crush on a boy who already had a boyfriend (but may or may not like him back) was another bad sign. But on the other hand lay his popularity, his consistent good grades and all of the friends he'd made in McKinley's glee club. It was an even match. Another trade off that reminded him of the kinds of things that happened in movies.

Blaine was ok, but for how long?

That very morbid thought snapped him back to reality just in time to catch Kurt's reply.

"You're not messed up. You're the picture of mental health."

Now it was Blaine's turn to smile sarcastically. "I don't know about that."

"I don't see why," Kurt told him. His gaze roamed from the top of Blaine's head down to the middle of his torso, the rest of him cut off from view by the edge of the table. "I've known you for a while now, Blaine Anderson, and so far you seem perfectly normal."

Blaine accidentally tore the sugar packet in half. Tiny white sugar crystals spilled across the table. He looked over at Kurt and found himself speaking before he could think better of it. It was now or never, and he may or may not be about to risk his friendship. "Can I tell you something? Something really stupid and ridiculous that, if I tell you, you have to promise me will never turn into gossip."

Kurt leaned forward a little. "Now that sounds too juicy to resist. Of course I'll keep it secret."

"I have this theory," Blaine began, trying to organise his suspicions into one coherent idea to better explain it to Kurt, "and I know it's a stupid theory, so bear with me. But I keep having this idea about the Lima Killer..."

"A theory?" Kurt prompted, leaning forward a little more.

"This is going to sound so silly." Blaine gave a self-deprecating smile. "I keep thinking that the killer wasn't just some random person with a thing for jocks. I actually think... I think that the killer was – is – a student."

"A student," Kurt repeated, voice neutral. "A student at McKinley?"

"Yes. It makes sense, it even fits with the profiling that was done on the killer." Blaine hesitated, not sure how much he should say about what he thought. "I mean, it's not without precedence. There have been high school shootings before, instances where a kid our age just loses it and goes to town on the people who made their life a hell. Under the right circumstances... it could be anybody, anybody who might've been bullied."

He paused then, watching Kurt for any sort of reaction. The other boy just looked at him, his cool blue eyes not giving anything away. "It does make sense," Kurt said slowly. "Do you have a theory about who it might have been?"

"...I do," Blaine admitted reluctantly. "I don't know if you'd want to hear it though."

"I want to hear it," Kurt assured him, a touch too quickly.

"I think... This is probably just me being crazy. I think it might be Puck." Blaine stopped then, watching Kurt watching him, watching as his face closed off completely. "Just listen, it makes sense. Even you have to admit that Puck seems like he's capable of a lot. If he were pushed too far –"

"If," Kurt interrupted.

"I'm not saying he is," Blaine amended, a flush of embarrassment starting to creep onto his face. "I'm just saying it's possible. It's a theory. I told you it was stupid."

"It's not stupid..."

"But?"

"But..." Kurt looked away a moment, then locked his gaze with Blaine's. "I don't think it's a good idea to share this theory with anyone. If it's not true then you're playing with the sort of rumours that can ruin a person's life, and if it is..."

A chill ran down Blaine's spine. "You would know though," he said to Kurt, suppressing the urge to shiver at the way the other boy looked at him from beneath long, dark eyelashes. "If it was true."

"I would."

The silence that descended on their table was so poignant that for a moment Blaine completely forgot they were even in a cafe. "Is it?" he asked.

Kurt looked down at the table. Blaine could actually feel his own heart beating as he waited for him to look up again. Eventually Kurt did, pinning Blaine to his chair with nothing more than a look. "Blaine," he started softly, "I don't know if you realise... I know exactly how you feel about me. But there are so many reasons I can't break up with Noah to be with you."

Blaine supposed that was enough of an answer. Suddenly he didn't feel quite so paranoid anymore.


	7. Chapter 7

**Warning**: AU, adult themes, potential creepiness, mentions of death and bullying.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment.  
><strong>Author Notes<strong>: Sorry for the delay in posting, real life had temporarily took my internet from me.**  
><strong>

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><p>.<p>

The most brilliant aspect of suicide was that it was so easy to blame the victim. In fact, in a crime where only the victim wasn't around to make their opinions known it was always easier to ascribe blame to one single body. Victim blaming wasn't anything new. He shouldn't have pissed off the wrong people, she shouldn't have been walking alone at night, if only they hadn't wandered down that dark alley. Suicide just removed all other parties from the equation. Publicly you thought that someone should have noticed, but privately you knew that it was their own fault.

If they were so depressed why didn't they get help? A little chemical injection to raise their serotonin levels, maybe a psychologist to talk thing over. Heck, just an icecream and a good old whine to their best friends should have been a more attractive option than death.

It was, if he did say so himself, a most excellent plan. And if all parties weren't on board with the plan… Well, who had to know?

Puck had thought his options over and suicide had come out on top.

It was something he hadn't tried before, a deviation from his normal routine. It was a way to get rid of Blaine without anyone thinking the Lima killer had made a relapse. And, oh. There were just so many ways to do it. At first he'd imagined slit wrists in a bathtub, but in reality that could get far too messy. Any sign of a struggle and there would be cause to think that there was foul play involved.

So that ruled out any of the more physical death methods. Hanging, shooting, any form of self mutilation. Nobody killed themselves by drowning.

That only made it difficult, not impossible.

"Does the pussy have a laptop?" Puck asked Kurt, alone together during one of their so-called study sessions.

"I don't see why that's relevant, but yes." Kurt answered, more pissy than usual and for not good reason.

Puck studied his boyfriend closely, trying to place the behaviour, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He narrowed his eyes, watching Kurt stiffly refuse to rise to the bait and look at him. "Don't tell me you're still feeling bad about this."

"Noah," Kurt sighed.

"Oh come on. It's not like you didn't know this was coming."

"Can we just get it over with, please?"

"Fine. But I'm gonna need a window and a syringe."

That made Kurt look at him. "A syringe?"

Puck smirked. "You don't want to ruin the surprise, do you?"

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><p>.<p>

Paranoia made him tip over the corn puffs. Blaine saw something from the corner of his eye and his body jerked in response, hand knocking his bowl of corn puffs and tipping the whole thing onto the floor. He realised even as his body was moving that it was ridiculous. There was no way Puck would be up this early in the morning, let alone stalking him from the scraggly old tree outside the kitchen window.

"Honey, are you alright?" His mother asked, concerned, from across the table.

'Fine," Blaine replied, pyjama pants soaked with milk and soggy bits of cereal. "I'm just not awake yet… I'm going to go get changed," he added, before his mother could voice any more concerns.

So, he reasoned as he trotted up the stairs and down the hall to his room. Puck was the killer, Kurt had as good as said so. That didn't necessarily mean that he'd be out to get him. After all, Blaine had done nothing to warrant assassination. He hadn't told anyone, or let on to Puck that he knew.

_Ah,_ his brain helpfully reminded him, _but Kurt told Puck everything. He would have mentioned accidentally spilling Puck's secret and who knows what Puck would want to do about that._

The thought stopped him dead in his tracks, standing in milk-soaked PJs in front of his dresser. What if Puck decided that Kurt was a liability? What if he thought that now that Kurt had spilled his secret once it would be easier to do again? What if he thought that telling Blaine was just a preliminary before he went to the police?

For just a moment a warm fuzzy feeling filled him at the idea of Kurt going to the cops. With Puck arrested then he and Kurt could be together. It didn't occur to him that maybe Kurt might have other ideas.

Finally Blaine realised that he was still wearing his pyjamas. He quickly stripped down and pulled an outfit from his dresser. Designer jeans, a grey t-shirt with a pair of sunglasses printed on the front, and a striped hoodie from a very trendy store. He matched the whole thing with coloured converse, finding it a little strange that he was still concerned with keeping up appearances even under these circumstances. Mind you, if not now (with a murderer already aware that Blaine knew his secret) then when?

Blaine mother kept shooting him concerned glances on the way in to school. She had insisted that she drive him in rather than taking the bus that morning. He suspected his earlier unexplained clumsiness was to blame.

"I'm fine," he tried again. "Honest."

"Sweetie, I haven't seen you this jumpy since the summer. I just want to make sure you're ok."

"I am ok," Blaine insisted. "I'm better than ok. Mr. Schuester was talking about giving me a solo in our next performance."

That seemed to satisfy his mother enough that she didn't mention it again. It was the truth that he'd told her, at least about the solo. But somehow it still felt like a lie. No, he most certainly was not ok and he didn't know why he hadn't just said so.

Blaine purposefully lingered in the courtyard outside the school, aiming to miss the morning court session at Kurt's locker. He wasn't in the mood to face a boy he knew was a killer, not just yet. Nor was he ready to see Kurt again, a little afraid that the other boy would have changed his mind and decided that it was too much trouble to keep associating with a boy who could get him killed by his own boyfriend.

If he had decided to attend the morning court he would have known before lunchtime that Puck wasn't actually in school that day.

"Sick," Kurt explained over his orange chicken salad, "with some appallingly virulent strain of the flu. I'm sure he'll be fine. Noah has always been known for his ability to bounce back from the edge of illness."

"I hope you don't get sick too," Rachel commented from the other side of the table, looking concerned, "our rehearsals this week are particularly important, given the rapid approach of sectionals."

"Don't worry, Rachel. I have no plans to contract Noah's cold. We're incommunicado until he stops dripping mucus."

That comment struck Blaine as particularly hopeful, enough so that he stopped poking at his lunch long enough to look up at his friend. "So Puck doesn't mind that you wont talk to him while he's sick?" Blaine asked, a meaningful look thrown in to add the question a weight that only Kurt would understand.

"He knows what I'm like with illness," Kurt replied, looking right back at Blaine with the same kind of stare. "It isn't anything new."

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><p>.<p>

This was new.

Puck had to admit that he had honestly never attempted anything like this before. Breaking and entering, sure. He'd done that before, if only into his own house or to Finn's place a couple of times. Empty buildings didn't count, since there was generally nobody around to notice anything anyway. But this… sneaking onto the Anderson's property in the middle of the day… this was something new.

The Anderson's house was your general two-storey deal, smack in the middle of the property and framed with a white picket fence. The driveway was covered, but the fence on that side was still small, providing little to no cover. Puck simply had to stroll up the driveway like he belonged there and hope nobody caught him tiptoeing through the azaleas down the side of the house as he looked for a likely point of entry.

He thought that he'd struck gold out the back in the form of a large, scraggly tree. If Puck stood underneath the tree and looked up he could see a direct line into a window on the second storey. It would be tricky, but not impossible. As long as he didn't break any branches or fall nobody should really notice him going up. And if the window up there wasn't locked or barred…

"Test run," Puck muttered to himself and started up the tree.

It wasn't quick, avoiding the small branches and testing to make sure each new limb would actually hold his weight, but eventually he drew level with the second storey window. No bars. No visible lock. He leaned slowly out and tested the window to see how easily it would open.

Not very. Careful levering only opened the window a few inches before it stuck, with probably some sort of stopper screwed in to prevent it from being opened all the way. Puck swore softly to himself and mentally crossed off that window.

He dropped back down to the ground outside the kitchen window and immediately realised that he'd been overthinking things. He should have checked for a spare key before he went and tried any of the more complicated methods.

Relying solely on suburban complacency and hoping the Andersons didn't have any nosy neighbours, Puck checked under the front welcome mat, above the door frame, and under a few lawn ornaments until he found a key. He tested it on the front door and had to resist a fist-pump when it actually opened up.

He put the key back where he'd found it before he stepped inside, fixing the location in his mind.

Only after he'd explored the entire house, found Blaine's bedroom, and figured out the perfect hiding place did he realise he'd have another issue to contend with. And thinking about the getaway made him think about the getting in. Thus far there had been no signs that anyone had seen him. No security system had gone off, no sirens had come screeching down the road, no neighbours had come knocking on the door to ask him what he was doing… But those were all things that could have happened.

He was lucky this time. Damn lucky. Next time he couldn't rely on luck.

Puck sighed softly and shook his head. He got down on his hands and knees and slid under Blaine's bed, testing the room and how easy it was to move. He tried the closet next, and the odd, awkward space under the computer desk.

This was new, and he had to get everything exactly right.

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><p>.<p>

The next day Puck wasn't in school either. Blaine kept a watchful eye out all day just in case he did show up, but nothing happened.

"Maybe he's not sick," Blaine suggested before choir practice, "maybe's he's actually skipped town."

"Blaine, don't be silly," Kurt replied, inspecting his nails. "Puck wouldn't leave town without telling me."

"How do you know?" Blaine asked reasonably, "you said you haven't spoken to him since he got sick, right?"

"Right," Kurt agreed reluctantly.

"Then how do you know he's still where he says he is?"

"If I didn't know better I'd say you were starting to sound a little paranoid, Mr Anderson."

"But you can't know for sure unless you go to his house, right?" Blaine pressed.

Kurt arched an eyebrow at him. "Are you suggesting we go to Noah's house after glee? We can, you know. If you think it would achieve anything more significant than confirming his whereabouts."

Exasperated, already tired of looking over his shoulder, Blaine asked (perhaps louder than he intended); "Why are you even with him?"

A sudden silence from the rest of the room made him blush as he realised how loudly he'd spoken. Blaine refused to look away from Kurt's face, watching the other boy's plush pink lips press together into a firm, angry line and two spots of red form high on his cheeks.

"That," Kurt said coldly, "is absolutely none of your business. And if you don't already understand why then you never will."

Blaine looked away first, aware that he'd overstepped his bounds. Throughout the rest of the practice he found he couldn't concentrate, accidentally messing up his choreography and sliding a little on some of his notes.

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><p>.<p>

On the third day neither Puck nor Blaine showed up at school.


End file.
